1980 390WR Almost Done........

I need to do this mod to my 73. It's only been test run once, and it ran and shifted great, but now it's stuck in gear. Plan to get the bike finished, running, then will address whatever it tells me it needs. But the real reason I posted... assembly lube. Good for you. Nice build.

Crashaholic, DFA and et. al.

After taking a six (6) hiatus dealing with some health issues, numerous house projects and completing an airplane restoration, I am finally back to finishing my 1980 390WR Husky.

I am still having issues with proper gearbox shifting and I think I found the problem. When I split the cases, I found the ratchet arm/ roller was riding on top of the ratchet gear that is affixed to the shifting drum. I am having a difficult time to get the ratchet arm roller to sit down in the ratchet gear. The spring that holds the two (2) ratchet arms together, wants to make the ratchet arm not sit flat.

I tried very hard to gently reassemble the cases with the ratchet arm/ roller engaged in the ratchet sprocket and I carefully split them again only to find the ratchet arm dislodged. Obviously, once the case is reassembled there is no way to see if the ratchet arm has become dislodged during reassembly.

Do you have any tricks to solve this problem during case reassembly?

I was thinking about:
1. Putting a loop zip tie around the ratchet arm and pull down while putting the case half back on
2. Cut and remove the zip tie, and pull it out once the cases come in close proximity to each other (while leaving enough space to remove the zip tie)

Here is a picture of the dislodged ratchet arm when I split the cases:



Engaged ratchet Arm (note that this as far down that I can get it into the ratchet gear:




Any help and/ or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Jon

Complete noob here so take it for what its worth.....is that heavy gauge wire supposed to hold the ratchet arm down in place? Does it need bent slightly?

The wire is actually a spring that holds the two ratchet arms together. I don’t think the arm needs to be bent since the right case half, once installed, holds everything in place. The trick is to get the case half installed without having the ratchet arm roller from jumping out of the gear drum ratchet.

It should lay flat without any help something else is causing it not to stay seated on the end of the shift drum.

Also remember to keep it in 4th gear for assy. Per the Manual Crash supplied on post #8
I'll be in RI on Tue if your near I could maybe swing by. Chris

Chris,

Thanks for the offer. I’ll PM you.

Jon

Chris & Crash:

I finally got everything back together and test drove it yesterday and it shifted fine. The problem was definitely the shift arm ratchet was slightly bent, whereby the arm roller was not engaging into the ratchet gear at the end of the shift drum. I straightened it and put everything back together and it works fine.

Thanks again for your help.

Jon

Sounds like some photos are in order.

Photos as requested

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Can't see the PICs!!

2nd attempt

Jon, You did a great job restoring that 1980 390WR. Nice quality work and looks original. Thank you for showing the pictures of it.

Marty

Very nice looking 390 and its good to hear its shifting normally. Its good to see that you're riding it too. Having a nice ride like that just sitting around would drive me bonkers. Getting out and riding a rebuild puts a huge smile on my face.